What if.........

[11b1776]

Remind me what did Iceland do?

Iceland pretty much said F you to all there debtors, demanded new elections for all goberment representatives, figured out who to blame for all there indebtness and throwed them in jail if I remember correctly, but don't quote me, I'm going by memory.

 

[Boehlertaught]

I'm not sure I want to continue to be nauseated by all of this or to get angry about it!!?? And I don't have $39k to pay my share of the debt let alone pay the share of some smuck leaching on the system.

 

[dru]

...........if all the donations to the presidential election went to the debt how fast would it be paid off......

The debt stands near 16.2 trillion. Thats 16,200,000,000,000. This year it is estimated that the presidential race will have about $5.8 billion (5,800,000,000) donated. If we were to spend that amount on our presidential elections each year to reduce our debt AND assuming our debt didn't increase, then it would take 2,793 years just to pay off the debt.

But, since a presidential election occurs only once every 4 years, you could argue that our rate of spending on a election is really only about 1.45 billion (1,450,000,000) per year which would mean that it would take us 11,172 years to pay off the debt.

ETA source goodness: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/08/2012-election-will-be-costliest-yet.html

 

[dru]

Well... let's play with some math.

The US national debt is currently near 10 trillion. wiki
If I got my zeros correct that's $10,000,000,000,000.

The US population is currently at 314,526,000 people. wiki
If you assume 20% of those are non-working children, then the working population is 251,620,800 (including retired people).

If you divide the debt equally among the people (working and retired), then it's $39,742 per person. That's one big bill.
I'm not sure presidential elections donations is anywhere near the amount required.



But if you take the total debt and pay it out over, ...say 10 years - then it's only $4000 per person per year in extra taxes.
(Assuming the politicians don't spend us further into more debt.)

Would you be willing to carry $4000 ***MORE*** in taxes for 10 years? (above and beyond your current tax load)
I might, providing those idiots in Washington would actually pass a constitutional bill to REQUIRE a federal balanced budget - and no future debt spending.
Of course, there's always the discussion of raising taxes or cutting spending. That's not really my intent, and honestly it's six of one - or half-a-dozen of the other.

I would pay more in taxes for 10 years, to ensure my child inherits a strong nation and future.

Not to nit-pick but you're missing a few things. First, the national debt is at 16 trillion, not 10 trillion. That has the effect of changing your $4000, to $6400. Secondly, only about half of the US population is actually in the labor force (employed and/or looking for work) so the denominator is really 160,000,000 - not 251,000,000

These changes take the annual payments from $4000 per year for ten years to $10,800 or a total cost of 108,000 -- For a two income household, they would be paying twice that, or nearly 22,000 a year for the next 10 years which I don't see as a very realistic option for most people. So there are a few options (short of defaulting):
1.) increase the denominator from 150,000,000 to something a LOT bigger. I am a big big fan of roping in retirees to pay for this (mostly because they are responsible for much of the debt to begin with) and that could probably get us to around 200,000,000 or so (average annual payment now down to 8100 per year)
2.) Increase the payback period from 10 to 20, 25, or 30 years. A 20 year note for a long-term obligation is something that is relatively common and certainly a national debt, even one that is considered "normal and healthy" would be considered a long-term obligation. This would further reduce the payment to 4,050 or 3,240 or 2,700 per year, respectively (though with a correspondingly longer repayment period)

There might be something to be said for a shorter repayment period as that would give politicians a shorter window of time with which to fuuck with all this and derail it to score political points.


But this just takes care of current liabilities and does nothing for future concerns. Currently the government spends so much money on transfer programs like medicare, social security, and medicaid, (so-called mandatory spending), that were the government to completely shut down ALL of its discretionary spending (military, roads, post office, DHS, DEA, DOE, Dept of Education etc.), and apply all tax revenue to these programs they would just barely (maybe) cover mandatory spending. But note that mandatory spending is increasing at a much faster rate than net tax receipts. So without significant, and very painful changes in our nation's social policy (read here: possible elimination) we will find ourselves right back where we were in short order. What this also means is that our government's spending exceeds our income by about 45% (i.e. for every $1.00 you earn, you spend $1.45) I frankly don't see how taxes can be raised to deal with this problem without causing some catastrophic problems. The "rich" simply don't have enough money to pay down all of this. One way or another, this will be paid for off the backs of everyday ordinary people, and (hopefully) those who depend on the system to care for them. Either taxes will go up across the board, or services will have to be cut. Either way, pain is coming not just for the moochers but for the productive citizens who have heretofore carried this insane patchworked claptrap of social programs

So yeah, that's my cheerful analysis for the day

ETA sources:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33074.pdf
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2012-BUD
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2013-BUD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

 

[patrickcudd]

Not to nit-pick but you're missing a few things. First, the national debt is at 16 trillion, not 10 trillion. That has the effect of changing your $4000, to $6400. Secondly, only about half of the US population is actually in the labor force (employed and/or looking for work) so the denominator is really 160,000,000 - not 251,000,000

So that takes the annual payments from $4000 per year for ten years to $10,800 or a total cost of 108,000 -- For a two income household, they would be paying twice that, or nearly 22,000 a year for the next 10 years which I don't see as a very realistic option for most people. So there are a few options (short of defaulting):
1.) increase the denominator from 150,000,000 to something a LOT bigger. I am a big big fan of roping in retirees to pay for this (mostly because they are responsible for much of the debt to begin with) and that could probably get us to around 200,000,000 or so (average annual payment now down to 8100 per year)
2.) Increase the payback period from 10 to 20, 25, or 30 years. A 20 year note for a long-term obligation is something that is relatively common and certainly a national debt, even one that is considered "normal and healthy" would be considered a long-term obligation. This would further reduce the payment to 4,050 or 3,240 or 2,700 per year, respectively (though with a correspondingly longer repayment period)

There might be something to be said for a shorter repayment period as that would give politicians a shorter window of time with which to fuuck with all this and derail it to score political points.


But this just takes care of current liabilities and does nothing for future concerns. Currently the government spends so much money on transfer programs like medicare, social security, and medicaid, (so-called mandatory spending), that were the government to completely shut down ALL of its discretionary spending (military, roads, post office, DHS, DEA, DOE, Dept of Education etc.), and apply all tax revenue to these programs they would just barely (maybe) cover mandatory spending. But note that mandatory spending is increasing at a much faster rate than net tax receipts. So without significant, and very painful changes in our nation's social policy (read here: possible elimination) we will find ourselves right back where we were in short order. What this also means is that our government's spending exceeds our income by about 45% (i.e. for every $1.00 you earn, you spend $1.45) I frankly don't see how taxes can be raised to deal with this problem without causing some catastrophic problems. The "rich" simply don't have enough money to pay down all of this. One way or another, this will be paid for off the backs of everyday ordinary people, and (hopefully) those who depend on the system to care for them. Either taxes will go up across the board, or services will have to be cut. Either way, pain is coming not just for the moochers but for the productive citizens who have heretofore carried this insane patchworked claptrap of social programs

So yeah, that's my cheerful analysis for the day

ETA sources:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33074.pdf
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2012-BUD
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2013-BUD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

Your math is sound, but a large portion of overall tax income are from corporate taxes. So dividing the debt by the number of people in the labor fore does indeed look scary. That being said debt number is totally out of control no matter how you look at it!!!!

 

[dru]

Your math is sound, but a large portion of overall tax income are from corporate taxes. So dividing the debt by the number of people in the labor fore does indeed look scary. That being said debt number is totally out of control no matter how you look at it!!!!

The corporate income tax net receipts as requested would have been only about 12.5% of net tax receipts. As enacted, it makes up only 9.5% of net tax receipts (I didn't include payroll taxes because its widely regarded that those are paid by the employee (even the "employer portion") and that the company just acts as an intermediary for passing those taxes onto the government. Please don't take this as an attack (its not), but I'm not sure what your point is regarding corporate taxes. Are you suggesting that corporations should be paying more of this tax or shouldering a portion of the burden along with individuals?

Also, even if we divide by something thats larger than the labor force (say, every adult citizen in the country), that is not such a large denominator as to change these numbers into numbers that are somehow more easily absorbed by the average person

 

[patrickcudd]

The corporate income tax net receipts as requested would have been only about 12.5% of net tax receipts. As enacted, it makes up only 9.5% of net tax receipts (I didn't include payroll taxes because its widely regarded that those are paid by the employee (even the "employer portion") and that the company just acts as an intermediary for passing those taxes onto the government. Please don't take this as an attack (its not), but I'm not sure what your point is regarding corporate taxes. Are you suggesting that corporations should be paying more of this tax or shouldering a portion of the burden along with individuals?

Also, even if we divide by something thats larger than the labor force (say, every adult citizen in the country), that is not such a large denominator as to change these numbers into numbers that are somehow more easily absorbed by the average person

Oh, heck no! Lower all taxes and cut the living **** out of spending, that's what I'd like to see happen. And real cuts, not changing the inflationary rate of increase and calling it a cut!

I'm just stating that the tax that corporations pay is not in the figures used in dividing the debt to each working person in the above examples.

 

[dru]

Oh I see what you're saying. But it ought not be included because the current debt is "historical" in nature. Now if we were looking at current deficits and current spending, or future spending/deficits then yeah it would be good to remove corporate income taxes from the pot to see just what the effect would be to individual income taxes. But yeah. Its depressing and should also be infuriating a helluva lot of people. Its still amazing how many people don't realize the gravity of our current fiscal situation.

Want to see something that will turn your S.h.i.t white? look up the present value of our future UNFUNDED liabilities. In plain english that means the value of today's dollars for the expected future spending for which we do not have an expected tax revenue to pay. Yeah, this $16 trillion begins to look like mere peanuts compared to that. Here's a hint: it is nearly all medicare, social security, and medicaid